Callie wrapped her arms tighter around her body. Leigh was with her, so this should be okay. This should be easy. One foot in front of the other. No turning around. No running away. The one-story ranch was on the right, the low roof sagging from years of neglect. As far as Callie knew, no one had lived there after Trevor and Linda had moved out. Callie had never seen a for-sale sign in front of the house. Phil had never been tasked with finding desperate tenants to rent the three-bedroom crime scene. Callie guessed that one of the neighborhood’s many slumlords had rented it out until there was nothing left but a leaking hull.
As they drew closer, Callie felt goose bumps trill along her skin. Not much had changed since the time of the Waleskis. The yard was more overgrown, but the mustard-colored paint was baked into the vinyl siding. All of the windows and doors were boarded up. Graffiti skirted the lower half. No gang tags, but plenty of schoolyard taunts and slut-shaming along with the normal array of spurting cocks.
Leigh kept her pace consistent, but she told Callie, “Look, it’s for sale.”
Callie shifted her body so she could see into the yard. The FOR SALE BY OWNER sign was being swallowed up by pokeweed. No graffiti had blocked out the letters yet.
Leigh had noticed the same thing. “It must be recent.”
Callie asked, “Do you recognize the number?”
“No, but I can do a search on the deed to see who owns the property.”
“Let me do that,” Callie offered. “I can use Phil’s computer.”
Leigh hesitated, but said, “Don’t let her catch you.”
Callie shifted forward again. The house was out of her line of vision, but she could feel it staring her down as they walked past the broken mailbox. She assumed they were going to make the long loop back to Phil’s, trapping Callie in an endless Inferno circle of her past. She rubbed her neck. Her arm had gone numb up to the shoulder. Her fingertips felt like they were being stabbed by thousands of African crested rats.
The problem with a cervical fusion was that the neck was designed to flex . If you fused one section, then the section below took all of the stress and, over time, the disc wore down and the ligaments gave up and the unfused vertebrae slipped forward and touched the adjacent vertebrae, usually at an angle, usually compressing a nerve, which in turn caused incapacitating pain. This process was called degenerative spondylolisthesis, and the best way to fix it was to fuse the joint together. Then time passed and it happened again so you fused the next joint. Then the next.
Callie wasn’t going to go through another cervical fusion. For once, the heroin wasn’t the issue. She could be medically detoxed, the same as they’d done when Covid put her in the ICU. The problem was any neurologist would take one listen to the glassy crinkle inside her lungs and tell her she wouldn’t survive the anesthesia.
“This way,” Leigh said.
Instead of turning right to make the journey back to Phil’s, Leigh went straight. Callie didn’t ask questions. She just kept walking by her sister’s side. They returned to their companionable silence all the way to the playground. This, too, had not changed that much during the ensuing years. Most of the rides were broken, but the swings were in good shape. Leigh shifted the backpack onto both shoulders so she could sit down in one of the cracked leather seats.
Callie walked around the swing set so she was facing the opposite direction from Leigh. She winced at the pinch in her leg when she sat down. Her hand went to her thigh. The heat was still pulsing through her jeans. She pressed her knuckle into the bump until the pain swelled like helium stretching a balloon.
Leigh was watching her, but she didn’t ask what was going on. She held tight to the chains, took two steps back, then lifted her feet into the air. She disappeared for a few seconds, then swung back into Callie’s line of sight. She wasn’t smiling. Her face had a grim set to it.
Callie started her swing. The balance was surprisingly harder when you couldn’t use the full range of motion in your head. She finally got the hang of it, pulling on the chains, leaning back into the upswing. Leigh zoomed by, going faster each time. They could be two trunks on a couple of drunken elephants, if elephants weren’t notorious teetotalers.
The silence continued as they both swung back and forth—nothing crazy, they were women of a certain age now, but they kept up a steady, graceful sway that helped dissipate some of the anxious energy between them.
Leigh said, “I used to take Maddy to the park when she was little.”
Callie blurred her eyes at the darkening sky. The sun had slipped away. Streetlights started flickering on.